Why They Get On
by joudama
Summary: People reckon they've almost got it figured, why Sherlock and John get on so well. ...almost.
1. Why They Get On

Nearest thing Greg could figure was, it had to be the praise.

Now see, Sherlock, the guy was a bloody genius. And he let _everyone_ know it. The man was insufferable. Only people who seemed to be able to tolerate him were Greg himself (grudgingly, because a) Sherlock solved the unsolvable and b) Mycroft Holmes frankly scared the piss out of him), that landlady of his he'd done some kind of favor for and who treated him like a gran would, and one Dr. John Watson.

It was clear why Sherlock tolerated him - he was the one with the access to the cases to keep that big brain of his from exploding from boredom or causing him to start injecting god only knew what back into his veins (Greg didn't want to contemplate Sherlock high again; aside from the obvious reasons, there was also that Mycroft Holmes did, after all, _scare the piss out of him_). As for the landlady, Mrs Hudson fed him and fussed over him and picked up after him (she seemed to need it, honestly - old lady on her own, no kids or grandkids around, she needed someone to fuss over, and looked like Sherlock was it). And Watson, well, he kept the man from getting punched in the face routinely by other blokes and patched him up as need be (handy that, picking up a doctor) and kept Anderson out of his hair.

But-he didn't just _tolerate_ John Watson, and that was what had Greg buggered. Sherlock Holmes actually seemed to _like_ John Watson, something Greg wouldn't have even said was possible prior to seeing the two of them walking off after Sherlock had solved a case, talking about getting a Chinese or a curry somewhere, like regular blokes.

Donovan was convinced they were shagging, and that theory didn't really answer any questions, either - left the same ones, really, only bigger, which was _what the devil was it about John Watson that got Sherlock Above-You-Lot Holmes to act almost human?_

Not only act almost human, but actually get Sherlock to stop acting like a royal git with just a calm and quiet, "Sherlock. A bit not good" (and usually when everyone else was thinking something along the lines of "Freak", Psychopath" or "Wanker", depending on who it was - you could pretty much see some variation of one of those three on people's faces. Or hear it coming out their mouths.)

And it wasn't that John was a pushover who went along with any mad scheme Sherlock came up with - Greg'd seen the man go nose-to-nose (so to speak) with Sherlock when the man was in one of his snits. It was very obvious that John wouldn't take any of Sherlock's garbage, and Sherlock had never done well with being told _no_. But John would tell him no, and tell him no loudly, then not budge one single, solitary inch.

But John also stroked the man's ego so much Greg half expected Sherlock to start purring sometimes. And it wasn't John trying to butter the man up, it just slipped out honest - he genuinely was amazed at Sherlock's brain, so much that even when Sherlock was being a git with all his showing off, John just stood there starry-eyed (which was why Donovan was _convinced_ John was bending over for Sherlock, or at the very least blowing him, and Greg really wished he'd not been there for _that_ drunken bit of speculation at the pub when they were all watching a match. Donovan had clearly been thinking about this, and had been thinking about it _too much_, as far as Greg was concerned). John's constant "Amazing"s were very different from how most sane people reacted to Sherlock, even when they _were_ amazed at him. And Sherlock lapped all that praise up like cream, he did.

Had to be the praise that did it.

...Or maybe, he thought, watching the two of them having a giggle fit, actually _giggling their heads off_ like demented teenaged girls, at a bloody - as in, _blood_ all over the place - _crime scene_ and with everyone gawping at the two of them like they were both freaks, it was that John Watson was as mental as Sherlock, he just hid it better most of the time, and _that_ was why they got on.


	2. Sussing It Out

What Donovan hasn't quite got sussed out yet is who's fucking who.

Well, she knows John Watson has to be blowing Sherlock. Bloke couldn't have any more of a hero-worship thing happen when the Freak does his freak thing and pulls shite no one should know out of nowhere. And the Freak all but puffs up when John gets that dewy-eyed look right before the Freak turns around and calls everyone around him an idiot to cover up his glee (and that's why she's not sure who's bending over for who; chuffed as the Freak gets at a little bit of praise from his pet doc, she could see him biting the pillow for it).

It's the weirdest fucking thing she's ever seen, the two of them, and she's seen some pretty fucking weird things (and now she's standing here contemplating weird things fucking, and all she wants at that thought is a nice pint or three and a good shag, because frustration has to be the only reason she's even thinking about the Freak's sex life. Ought to be non-existent, that, and she takes offense at the thought of him getting more than her).

The Freak's boyfriend seemed like a normal enough bloke, when you first met him. Which made it weird that he stuck around Sherlock, but then, maybe the guy had kind of death wish thing happening to choose to hang out with a posh psychopath. A death wish or a touch of the masochism.

...She _really_ wished she hadn't thought that, and felt herself blanching at the idea of the Freak being a whole _different_ kind of freak. Or that bland-looking Watson being into that kind of thing.

But then, yeah, it made sense, if you switched it up a bit. Yeah, Watson was blowing the Freak (bet the Freak would do random 'deducing' around their flat just to get him to just drop to his knees right then and there since there weren't nobody around to arrest 'em for indecent), but he also could get the Freak to shut his trap with just a "Bit not good," which nearly bowled her over when what she'd seen actually clicked. He could make the Freak behave; almost had him bloody trained, and-

So that was it, yeah? The Freak's _boyfriend_ was actually the freak in the sheets and probably liked to tie Sherlock up and spank him or something and tell him how 'not good' he'd been, and that was why the Freak sometimes listened to him.

...It'd explain that riding crop they'd found in the Freak's bedroom when they did that drugs bust, and that made her want to go wash her hands even though she hadn't been the one who found it. Worse than the eyeballs, that.

It was always the normal-looking ones, she thought, looking at the Freak's boyfriend in his rumpled jumper. He blinked at her, and yeah. Always the normal-looking blokes who were the _real_ freaks.

Tell you one thing, she was NOT searching his room next time they did a drugs bust at the freak_s_', _plural_, flat. She'd take her chances with the kitchen and the eyeballs.

It was _always_ the normal-looking ones.


	3. Doing the Legwork

Mycroft Holmes is _quite_ certain he knows what it is his brother sees in John Watson. And, more importantly and on some level more worrisome, what it is that John Watson sees in his brother.

One Dr John Watson, fmr Captain of Her Majesty's Royal Army Medical Corp, is, to be quite vulgar, an adrenaline junkie with an addictive personality. He craves danger much like Sherlock once craved drugs in his system (a weakness still indulged, forgivably, with nicotine, and Mycroft is certain that John ensures that is _all_ his brother indulges in; John has been as..._intimately_ - ah, the bonds of family - acquainted with addicts Mycroft himself; well enough to disapprove in a way that is fixed and unmovable and on this point he will not budge, for all his misses his own addiction, that his own body craves its own natural chemical mix of adrenaline as much as any of the addicts John has known crave their external chemicals). He even turns into a trembling wreck, of a sorts, once the danger is gone. The tremble of his hand is no different than the way Sherlock's lip, such an unpleasant and distasteful memory, and extremities would tremble from withdrawal. John needs his battlefield, and Sherlock needs someone to keep him from his own _Todestrieb_.

Two addicts, enabling each other with no idea of it, which is why he keeps an eye on them - he is loathe to do his own legwork, but family is family, and Sherlock requires a vigilant eye.

It is not _Eros_, in the rather laughable way as so many mistakenly think, that binds his brother and Dr John Watson. It is _Thanatos_. They both seek death in their own way, and thankfully for Mycroft's very sanity, their two urges cancel each other out insofar as they keep each other alive so they can chase after Death another day. They may both wish in their own unconscious ways to die in order to feel the thrill of living, but they also wish very much very _consciously_ for the other to stay alive. They both seem to think the world is a more interesting place with the other in it. In that way, perhaps it is a touch of _Eros_, tedious and flawed though Freudian thought may be, making Mycroft loathe to use it even though it does seem to fit in some small way here, insofar as it is a drive towards life and _survival_. They rely on each other to keep from getting themselves killed. Sherlock is willing to put his life of the line to prove he is so very clever, and John Watson gets in the way to put his on the line instead because he needs his adrenaline hit. They push themselves into harm's way so they other can push them out. It is a vicious cycle, and perhaps not the healthiest of lives, but it is one in which they both, addicts in their own way, acknowledged or not, _thrive_.

...or perhaps, he thinks as the two of them stab at each other's food with their chopsticks (_āiyā, chīxiàng tài nánkàn le_) and stick their tongues out at each other before John wins and pops a dumpling in his mouth with gloating relish and his brother goes into a _pout_, all clear as day through the CCTV cameras pointed at the shabby yet excellent Chinese restaurant they often frequent when Sherlock deigns to eat, and feeling a headache blooming at his temples, he is overthinking it, and it it may simply be the fact the two of them are both man-children with the emotional maturity of _five year olds_.


End file.
